GOP brand damaged

SENECA - The demographics of America are changing, a top political analyst said Thursday, and the Republican Party, even in South Carolina, has a branding problem.

"If there isn't some rethinking, we're going to see more elections like Tuesday," Chip Felkel told a Seneca audience of about 50 at the monthly meeting of the Oconee Alliance civic organization.

Felkel, founder and president of the Greenville-based Felkel Group, is a public affairs strategist and media relations expert who has consulted for the South Carolina Republican Party, the Republican National Committee, U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint and the 2000 and 2004 Bush-Cheney campaigns. He is also a political analyst for media outlets.

This year's elections followed months of campaigning, over $6 billion spent, over 1.5 billion advertisements run "and yet we end up with the same House (of Representatives), the same Senate and the same president," Felkel said.

"The Republican Party brand is severely damaged," Felkel said. "It's damaged with Hispanics, it's damaged with women and it's damaged by spending ways that make voters uncertain it can really help the economy. There has to be a reset.

"The party has to decide whether it's the party of ‘angry white males' or a party of issues," he said.

One of the greatest problems, Felkel said, is the failure to address the changing demographic makeup of America that is changing the face of the American voter, which to an increasing degree is Hispanic.

Even in South Carolina, he said, Hispanics are an increasing percentage of the voters, perhaps reflected in Tuesday's result of a 55 percent result for Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

Under previous assumptions about the electorate, Felkel said, the tally should have been over 60 percent for Romney.

Republicans need to rethink their position on immigration, Felkel said, which is seen by some Hispanics as too hard line.

Republicans also have problems with women and younger voters, he said, voters who might be inclined to see the party as out of touch with mainstream America. Democrats, on the other hand, Felkel said, have increased their appeals on certain issues to subsets of the electorate.

"It's not always the larger issues," he said.

And while Romney was the best of the Republican candidates who offered in this election cycle, Felkel said, some conservatives had problems trusting the former Massachusetts governor and the Republican Party failed to properly address the Democratic attacks on Romney's personal wealth and his time with the Bain Capital venture capital firm.

Too, said Felkel, the voters are tired of the bickering among the politicos and want action. He described times in the past when political opponents and their staffs in Washington D.C. were cordial and even socialized with each other.

"They don't do that anymore," he said, adding that nowadays even opposing staffers see the staff of political opponents as the enemy.

The public's response, he said, might ultimately lead to a change in what has become the traditional political makeup.

"We could be not far from having a third (major) party," he said. "At the end of the day, it's still about the people."